'Money to be made': Explosion of Australia's tobacco black market

There has been an explosion in Australia's tobacco black market, with more than 300 tonnes of smuggled contraband seized in the past year.

Australian Border Force said the amount has tripled since 2017, as organised crime delves deeper into the illegal trade.

"We're talking about large criminal entities interested in making money off the tobacco industry," WA's Border Force Commander Rod O'Donnell told 9News.

"There's money to be made if you can get the products in and sold into the black market economy."

Perth man Ali Reza Baturi was jailed for two years last week, after being arrested for trying to evade more than $350,000 in excise duty.

He was caught smuggling almost 499 kilograms of tobacco product, and is expected to be deported to either Pakistan or Afghanistan when his sentence ends.

Another recent raid on a shipping container imported by a Perth spice merchant uncovered 800,000 illegally imported cigarettes.

The businessman has been charged with evading almost $4 million in duty.

Commander O'Donnell said the largest seizure ever was in 2018, and included 9.5 million smuggled cigarettes.

Each legally-sold cigarette in Australia attracts a tax of 93 cents.

"The revenue evaded last year in the goods we detected was $660 million," he said.

"So, there's $660 million that should have been coming into the Australian government to build schools to build hospitals."

He also warned that many of the cigarette packets that come illegally have been counterfeited with more dangerous ingredients than normal.

"Think about what you're buying because what you're buying here is financing organised criminal entities and you're breeding more crime in the community."

Commander O'Donnell the soaring costs of cigarettes were driving the black economy in tobacco, but fully supported the high excise as a health deterrent and revenue raiser.

The ABF's tobacco taskforce has also investigated links between terrorism financing and the tobacco black market.

"There's everybody from business people deciding here's a way to make some money on the side, but as I said there's often a very strong criminal link with the groups involved in this," Commander O'Donnell.